BACKGROUND
New Literacies:
Changing Knowledge and Classroom Learning was first published in 2003 by
Open University Press (Buckingham and Philadelphia). It was
commissioned by Shona Mullen, who was at that time the Editor for the
press's Education list. The book was to be a free standing book, not
a part of any of the existing book series that Open University Press
was running at the time.
A very short time after
publication Open University Press was incorporated into the
McGraw-Hill publishing group, and with that change Shona Mullen
became McGraw-Hill's European Manager for Education . Fiona Richman
took over Shona's position and continued to work with us on this
book, as well as commissioning our 2004 book, A Handbook for Teacher
Research.
Open University Press
maintains its original name, but its publishing locations were
shifted to Maidenhead (Berkshire) in the UK and to New York in the
US. New
Literacies
obviously benefited from McGraw-Hill's marketing and distribution
range and experience. It was reprinted in 2004, and in mid 2005 a
second edition was contracted, under the care of Kirsty Reade and
Fiona Richman.
At the time of
establishing this set of web pages the ink has dried on the contract
and work is beginning on the new edition. We are scheduled to have
the manuscript to the publishers by March 2006, with a view to
publication around September 2006.
We are building this
website as a resource to accompany the passage of the book from the
first to the second edition. In particular, a lot of material
contained in the first edition will disappear in the second edition.
When the book was originally conceived it was with the hope that
there would be a chance to keep updating it through multiple
editions. As is obvious, what is 'new' becomes 'old' in time. And
much of what is new in new literacies is quickly superseded. Under
current and foreseeable conditions, one could reasonably expect the
shelf life of an edition to be less than five years.
At the same time, we
think it is worthwhile trying to maintain something of the chronology
and 'historicity' of the book, since it does attempt to exemplify
those new literacies that are current at the time of writing. Should
the book run to further editions beyond the second we would hope that
the successive editions will capture something of literacies in
change over a 10 year period.
Yet, as one edition
displaces another, the original edition goes out of print, and people
who may, in future years, wish to have access to what was said about
'earlier new literacies' will not always be able to get ready access
to what came before. Hence, this website where we hope to be able to
archive material that is displaced in the new edition of the
book.
We want also to use the
website to convey something of the life of the book as a project, a
work in progress. This will include our accounts of what we are
trying to do with the book, the challenges we face in doing the work,
our reasons for some of the decisions taken, and so on. Furthermore,
at this early stage of working toward the new edition we are also
hoping it may be possible to develop an interactive dimension to the
book. We would like to develop spaces where other people can make
comments, offer suggestions, relate any experiences they may have of
working with the book, and where we can interact with student and
teacher users of the book. How much of what we envisage for this kind
of work ends up on this site remains to be seen. This site may become
the test bed for a more elaborate resource.
Meanwhile, the present
site takes up with the contract signed and the hard work to be
done.